Names
by mysteryredhead
Summary: Who are you? She decides to tell it like it is, just to prove she can. It's how she is now.


When her AP Lit teacher handed out the assignment, Veronica groaned and wondered if she should do a background check on the woman just to see if she really is qualified to teach high school.

_Who Are You? 1000 Words. No more, no less._

Honestly, she thinks this wouldn't actually pass the criteria for even a freshman-level essay, but then, this is Neptune, and someone probably complained to Daddy that the work was too difficult.

Now, she needs to answer the woman, and make it decent, because if she's one thing, it's in dire need of the Kane Scholarship. She's not a conformist (at least, not anymore), so she decides to take it absolutely literally, just to show this teacher that this can be done in more ways than one. (She's learnt that there's _always_ a way around things).

Who is she? She's a Private Investigator – the jaded, cynical kind… all wrapped up in a cute, blonde package. She doesn't mind looking like she does – people are constantly underestimating her, and it's entertaining.

Keith calls her Veronica. It's what she is too him and it's as simple as that. But he has that annoying Dad talent, where he can make her feel loved, guilty, angry or calm just by saying her name.

Wallace calls her lots of things; Mars, Wild Child, Superfly, Marshmallow - it depends on his mood, or the joke he's about to crack, (which is likely to be at her expense, and possibly about how she really just a Twinkie deep down inside).

Weevil calls her V. Only ever V. (Except for that one time he called her 'sister'. Then they started this I'll-scratch-your-back-and-you-scratch-mine thing and now it's only ever V.) From him and the PCHers, the nickname is a mark of respect. She likes that she was given a name by the local biker gang without the need for two wheels and heavy-duty leather. (It's sort of like how he calls Keith 'Sheriff', regardless of if he is or not).

Duncan has called her Veronica, and Baby... but that's it. Well, it's all she can recall, so she figures that's all that matters (Oh wait, no. Once, he tried out 'sweetcheeks' but she (in all her pink and white five feet of glory) almost body-checked him, so he left it at that while Lilly laughed her head off behind them).

Mac calls her Superslueth, or Superwoman - which is a nice change from the rest of the student body, who usually lean towards 'dirt' or 'slut' or 'traitor' or 'bitch' or 'the easy lay' or 'the ice queen' (She thinks the moronic teenagers who are unfortunately her peers should keep track of which rumours they're going to be circulating from week to week. It's not logical for her to be a slut and frigid at the same time. _Seriously_.)

Dick calls her Ronster - it's his brand of mocking of their old friendsship/accquaintance/ tolerance thing they had going before Lilly's death. (Also, once, he called her 'Rich Dude Kryptonite', which is kind of true, when she looks at only the barest facts, but she's still allowed to hate it).

Only two people still call her by her full name; Arch-enemies Sheriff Lamb and Vice-Principal Clemmons. (Lamb says it with annoyance or disdain, while Clemmons usually leans towards exasperation - which is, as a rule, deserved. Trouble does tend to find her, and for a school administrator, that's _got_ to be annoying.)

Lilly only ever called her Veronica Mars, in an utterly sincere and honest tone - she was insistent that someone as fabulous as she was bound to be needing two names. ("I'm the type of person who is fabulous with one name, Veronica Mars, you are the type who conveys it with two. That's just how it is. Deal with your fabulousness, Veronica Mars.")

When she said it out loud like that, it really does seem true. (It still does.)

It's become a sort of mocking title, now. Students who've come up against her and lost (which is most of them) in a battle of wits, case or some kind of revenge scenario have this particular intonation, which she finds amusing, because it's just as Logan would say if he was being sarcastic. They draw out her first name, Ver-_on_-ica Mars. Blah blah blah. It's good in its own way, because it so immediately reminds her of Logan that she's automatically in battle-mode. No wonder she always gets the last word.

Logan calls her Ronnie, or 'Ronica. It's different, and just the kind of nickname he likes, for some unfathomable reason other than he just has the time to say almost her full name whenever he can, while still mocking her lightly. (He's called her other names, in the rumour mill he so obviously controls, but that's over now, and she can't - as she likes to tell people _she_ pisses off - _find the proof_.) He also likes to call her 'Tiny Blonde One', 'Superspy' or 'Mini-PI' when he's teasing her. She just retaliates with 'jackass' while they banter.

Do these names define her? Do they make her who she is? In a way, yes - all these people keep her real, keep her from becoming Betty, or Kitty, or Charlene, Susan, Becca, Miss Sabrina - whoever she needs to be in that moment, for that person on that day, to solve whichever case invades her mind. Those ones are insubstantial names that wouldn't hold up in the wind, or under even the slightest scrutiny.

They stop her from almost spinning when someone calls out 'whore' or 'slut' or 'Trampy McBitch'. They stop her from feeling like 'White Trash' and a 'Low-down backstabber'.

Someone calls her name (or, at least, one of the ones she likes) and she's back, she's herself again. She's V, Superfly, Marshmallow, Ronnie, 'Ronica, any number of names that the people that matter to her have come up with, abbreviated or not.

She is Veronica Mars.

No more, no less.


End file.
